In the summer of 1995, a heat wave of unprecedented  intensity struck the city of Chicago with devastating results. An estimated 739 people, most of them elderly, died during a single week in the month of July. This may seem a strange event to discuss in the cold of December, but the catastrophe can prove instructive about  how to live well in every season of our lives.

On day one of the heat wave the thermometer reached 106; during the following days it ranged between the 90s and the low hundreds. At night, the temperature did not fall below the 80s and people in apartment houses and other residences baked.

As thousands of people became sick, the city’s medical facilities were overloaded. Ambulance drivers had to travel for miles until they could find a hospital to admit their passengers. Twenty-three hospitals could not accept new patients because they were  filled with emergency cases.

On news programs around the country, Americans saw ghastly images of refrigerator trucks with the bodies of people who never reached the hospital.

The lessons learned from this dire event figure large in a new study by Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist at Northwestern University. His new book bears the title Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago. While watching an interview with the author, I felt confirmed in several  of my views about desirable, even indispensable, features of life in one’s later years.

Some of Klinenberg’s findings come as a surprise. For instance, men were twice as likely to die as women. Also Latinos died at a much lower rate than African Americans. As the author says in an interview found on the Internet, “Latinos, who represent about 25 percent of the city population and are disproportionately  poor and sick, accounted for only 2 percent of the heat-related deaths.”

Poverty alone does not provide a sufficient explanation.

Risk factors cited by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention include the following conditions:  “living alone, not leaving home daily, lacking access to transportation, being sick or bedridden, not having social contacts nearby, and of course not having an air conditioner.”

Confirming these factors, Klinenberg confirms that hundreds of the victims died alone, “behind locked doors and sealed windows.” If they had friends, these victims had no effective contact with them. Neighbors and social service agencies never reached them either.

The author also mentions the culture of fear that marks the lives of some elders. Whether realistic or not, their anxiety about being assaulted prevents them from venturing outside or even opening their doors.

He also emphasizes the effect on a neighborhood of businesses, service agencies, and other people moving away. That leaves behind those with no other options and they remain vulnerable to isolation. Single room occupancy buildings and what Klinenberg calls “last ditch housing” also expose people to terrible dangers.

The author refuses to assign blame to any one individual or organization but finds a large number of agencies sharing responsibility for the tragedy. The city certainly failed to recognize the scope of the tragedy as it began and developed. Much more than the municipal government realized, greater resources were needed and so was coordination of services.

My own reflections on this sad debacle center on the need for community. Even if it did not expose me to danger, I would still judge isolation from other people terribly sad. Too many of us, young and old, cherish  false myths of independence. To me, it’s simply not desirable to go it alone, especially as I grow older.

Even what seems a highly desirable ideal – – aging in place – – turns out to have limitations. For some people, living alone in their own house can become both emotionally impoverishing and physically dangerous. Almost all of us need the support brought by interchanges with other people.

Yes, some people end up alone in situations not of their own choosing. But, as a society, we must try to become more imaginative about ways of reducing segregation and bringing people together. Both our bodies and our souls require this stimulus and a disaster like the Chicago heat wave of 1995 can help us recognize this need.

We men are in special need. Lacking the domestic skills required for a gracious lifestyle, as so many of us do, and often being averse to developing close relationships with other people, we can find ourselves dangerously isolated in old age. Perhaps we can get by on our own at age 30, but at age 85 can any of us? And, is it even desirable?

The Chicago experience also suggests that the quality of our neighborhood has great importance also. Granted the difficulties of finding places to live that are both supportive and stimulating, we still have reason to be wary of areas in decline. If they lose residents and businesses also leave, that can create vulnerability for us.

A heat wave can thus stir reflection on what makes for a good life as well as a reasonably safe one.

Richard Griffin